Two Aerospace Corporation CubeSat Remote Sensing Imagers: CUMULOS and R3

For remote sensing missions, the fractionated functionality of CubeSats provides a potential way to reduce cost and risks while maintaining comparable operational capabilities. This paper describes two CubeSat remote sensing missions developed by The Aerospace Corporation. The CubeSat Multispectral Observation System (CUMULOS) and R3 sensors will be hosted on 3U CubeSats developed by Aerospace. CUMULOS will research optimal methods for the operation of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) camera sensors, and assess their ability to perform weather and environmental monitoring missions. The payload consists of three optics and sensor pairs: a panchromatic, visible CMOS camera, a short-wavelength infrared InGaAs camera, and a long-wavelength infrared microbolometer camera. These cameras are designed to operate in staring mode, and the payload will be able to capture images nearly simultaneously from the three cameras. CUMULOS is expected to launch no earlier than Fall 2017. R3 will demonstrate the ability of a 3U CubeSat to perform remote sensing activities analogous to Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) instrument. The payload consists of a custom-designed refractive telescope combined with a filter block identical to those flown on Landsat 8, and a high-framerate commercial CMOS focal plane. Six of the nine Landsat 8 OLI bands will be read out. R3 will operate in a pushbroom mode, individual frames will be downlinked, and time-delay integration will be performed on the ground. This will be facilitated by an optical communications payload that will provide the necessary downlink. R3 is scheduled to launch no earlier than November 2017. Both payloads have been space-qualified on the ground by documenting their performance in a simulated space environment. The detectors’ gain, point-response, non-uniformities, dark current, and non-linearity have been measured during pre-launch testing. Space-based vicarious calibration will be tied to Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and OLI.